A Golden Chain, Chapter 1
CHAP. I. What Conscience is.
COnscience is a part of the vnderstanding in all reasonable creatures, determining of their particular actions either with them or against them.
I say conscience is a part of the vnderstanding, and I shewe it thus: God in framing of the soule placed in it two principall faculties, Vnderstanding and Will. Vnderstāding is that facultie in the soule, wherby we vse reason: & it is the more principall part, seruing to rule & order the whole man; & therfore it is placed in the soule to be as the wagginer in the waggin. The Will is another facultie, whereby wee doe will or nill any thing… that is, choose or refuse it. With the will is ioyned sundrie affectiōs, as ioy, sorrow, louelove, hatred, &c. whereby we imbrace or eschewe that which is good or euill. Nowe, conscience is not placed in the affections nor will, but in the vnderstanding; because the actions thereof stand in the vse of reason. Vnderstanding againe hath two parts. The first is that which stands in the viewe and contemplation of trueth and falshood, and goes no further. The second is that which standes in the view and consideration of eueryevery particular action, to search whether it be good or badde. The first is called the Theoricall, the second the practicall vnderstanding. And vnderunder this latter is conscience to be comprehended: because his propertie is to iudge of the goodnes or badnes of things or actions done.
Againe I say that conscience is a aVnderstanding hath no parts properly but by anologie in respect of di…ers obiects and ac…ions.part of the minde or vnderstanding, to shewe that conscience is not a bare knowledge or iudgement of the vnderstā ding (as bTh. Aquin. part. 1. q. 79. art. 13. Dominic. Bannes on this place, Antoninus, &c.men commōly write) but a naturall power, facultie, or created qualitie from whence knowledge and iudgement proceede as effects. This the Scriptures confirme, in that they ascribe sundrie workes and actions to conscience, as accusing, excusing, comforting, terrifying: which actions could not thence proceede, if conscience were no more but an action or act of the mind. Indeede I grant, it may be taken for a kind of actuall knowledge, in the minde of man: but to speake properly, this knowledge must proceede of a power in the soule, the propertie whereof is to take the principles and conclusions of the mind and apply them, and by applying either to accuse or excuse. This is the ground of all, and this I take to be conscience. If it be obiected that conscience cannot be a naturall power, because it may be lost: I answer if conscience be lost, it is onelyonly in respect of the vse thereof, as reason is lost in the drunken man and not otherwise.
I adde, that the proper subiects of conscience are reasonable creatures, that is, men and Angels. Hereby conscience is excluded, first of all from bruite beasts; for though they hauehave life and sense, and in many things some shadows of reason, yet because they want true reason, they want conscience also. Secōdly from God the creator, who beeing righteousnes it selfe, needeth not conscience to order and gouerne his actions. And whereas Peter saieth, 1. Pet. 2. 19. that men must endure griefe wrongfully for conscience of god, his meaning is not to shewe that God hath conscience, but that men are to suffer many wrongs because their conscience doe bind them, in so doing to obey Gods wil, which conscience directly respecteth.
And I say that conscience is in all reasonable creatures, that none might imagine that some men by nature hauehave conscience in them, some none at all. For as many men as there are, so many consciences there be: and eueryevery particular man hath his owne particular conscience.
The proper end of conscience is, to determine of things done. And by this conscience is distinguished from all other gifts of the minde, as intelligence, opinion, science, faith, prudence. Intelligence simplie conceiues a thing to be or not to be: opinion iudgeth a thing to be probable or contingent: science, iudgeth to be certen and sure: faith is a perswasion, whereby we beleeue things that are not: prudence discerneth what is meet to be done, what to bee left vndone; but conscience goes further yet then all these: for it determines or giues sentence of things done, by saying vntounto vsus, this was done, this was not done, this may bee done, this may not be done: this was well done, this was ill done.
The things that conscience determines of, are a mans own actions: his own actions, I say. To be certen what an other man hath said or done, it is commō ly called knowledge: but for a man to be certaine what he himselfe hath done or said, that is conscience. Againe conscience meddles not with generals, onelyonly it deales in particular actions: and that not in some few but in all.
The manner of consciences determination, is to set downe his iudgement either with the creature or against it: I adde this clause, because conscience is of a diuine nature, and is a thing placed of God in the middest betweene him and man, as an arbitratour to giuegive sentence and to pronounce either with mā or against man vntounto God. For otherwhiles, it consents and speaks with God against the man in whome it is placed: otherwhiles againe it consents with him and speakes for him before the Lord. And hence comes one reason of the name of conscience. Scire, to knowe, is of one man alone by himselfe: and conscire is, when two at the least knowe some one secret thing; either of them knowing it togither with the other. Therefore the name foreign, or conscientia Conscience, is that thing that combines two togither, and makes thē partners in the knowledge of one and the same secret. Now man and man, or man and Angel cannot be combined; because they cannot knowe the secret of any man vnlesse it be reuealed to them: it remaines therefore that this combinatiō is onelyonly betweene man and God. God knowes perfectly all the doings of man, though they be neuer so hid and concealed: and man by a gift giuen him of God, knowes togither with God, the same things of himselfe: and this gift is named Conscience.